Monique Wittig

Biography

Monique Wittig was born on 13 July 1935, in the Haut-Rhin département of Alsace. She moved to Paris in the 1950s, where she studied at the Sorbonne. Prior to publishing her first novel, she worked as a teacher, and as part of editorial teams (including at Les Éditions de Minuit, contributing to the 1963 edition of the Dictionnaire des rues historiques de Paris).

The end of the 1960s saw a period of social turmoil in France, which laid the foundation for various movements, including the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (MLF), of which Wittig was a prominent member. In 1968, her translation of Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man was published by Éditions de Minuit as L’Homme unidimensionnel. A year later, in 1969, her second novel, Les Guérillères, was published by the same publishing house. Wittig continued her work on pronouns, started in L’Opoponax, highlighting the gender bias existent in general pronominal forms, like ‘ils’. L’Opoponax is marked by the use of ‘on’ (as the children are still immune to gender differences), while her second novel has ‘elles’ as its protagonists, a group of self-sufficient women attempting to re-inscribe their bodies and experiences into history and culture. Monique Wittig was part of the group of women who, on 26 August 1970, laid a wreath of flowers at the Arc to Triomphe for the Unknown Soldier’s wife. The event caused a great stir in the media, and it is seen to mark the birth of the MLF.

1973 saw the publication of her third novel, Le Corps lesbien, a lesbian Song of Songs, where a split subject, ‘j/e,’ is constantly dismembering and re-membering the body of the loved one. Two years later, in 1975, Le Brouillon pour un Dictionnaire des Amantes, co-written with her partner Sande Zeig, was published by Grasset. The dictionary recreates a feminist/lesbian mythology, carving out a space for women’s histories and desires. Soon after, in 1976, Wittig moved to the United States, taking up various university teaching posts (Berkeley, University of Southern California, University of California Davis, New York, Duke, University of Arizona, etc.), and focusing on her theoretical and philosophical writings.

Questions féministes was created in 1977, with Monique Wittig part of the editorial team, until the dissolution of the magazine, and the creation of Feminist Issues in 1980. In 1978, at the MLA conference in New York, Wittig delivered her ‘The Straight Mind’ speech, ending with the now famous ‘lesbians are not women’. While this sentence has been subsequently (mis-)interpreted, it relates to Wittig’s understanding of the woman: ‘it would be incorrect to say that lesbians associate, make love, live with women, for "woman" has meaning only in heterosexual systems of thought and heterosexual economic systems’ (‘The Straight Mind’).

Wittig completed her doctoral thesis, 'Le Chantier littéraire', in the 1980s (the thesis was defended in 1986), under Gérard Genette’s supervision at L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. In 1982, she translated Djuna Barnes’s La Passion, writing its ‘Avant-note’ (also available in The Straight Mind as ‘The Point of View: Universal or Particular’). On 30 and 31March 1984, The Constant Journey, a play written by Wittig, and directed with Sande Zeig, was performed at Haybarn Theatre, Goddard College. It was shown shortly afterwards (May-June 1985) in Paris, at the Théâtre du Rond Point.

Virgile, Non was also published the same year, presenting the protagonist – Wittig – as she embarks on a Dantean, katabatic journey. However, in this version, Wittig faces the horrors of recent history (for example World War II and colonialism), and the incessant suppression of women’s needs and individualities. Wittig’s failed attempts to save the damned souls highlight the fact that freedom cannot be imposed on others. The text is replete with intertextual references to San Francisco, women’s movements, and even to Anita Bryant’s homophobic campaign. Wittig’s essay collection was published in English in 1992 (The Straight Mind and Other Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992)), bringing together texts previously published in various journals, or delivered at conferences. The essays cast an important light on Wittig’s work as a writer, but also as an activist and radical, material feminist. Her collection of short stories was published in 1999 by POL – Paris-la-politique – continuing the vein of her previous novels. In 2001, the French translation of The Straight Mind was published by Éditions Balland, as La Pensée Straight. The same year, Sande Zeig’s film The Girl was released, with a screenplay by Wittig and Zeig. Also in 2001, the first conference focusing exclusively on Wittig’s work was organised in Paris, bringing together speakers from Europe and North America.

Monique Wittig passed away on 3 January 2003, in Tucson, Arizona. Le Chantier littéraire was published posthumously in 2010 by Éditions iXe and Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Her papers were acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. As 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of L’Opoponax an app was launched to accompany the reading of the novel. Users are introduced to the press reception of the novel in 1964, as well as to various translations of the text and recordings in multiple languages of the final pages, providing an initial taste of the univers wittiguien.

The Straight Mind and Other Essays [foreword by Louise Turcotte] (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992) [the essays in the collection had previously been published in journals and magazines, mostly in English]

Paris-la-politique (Paris: POL, 1999) [most of the short stories in the volume had previously been published in journals and magazines]